Machinations of the Bat
by CatchFactory
Summary: After a mission goes drastically wrong due to "League Regulations", Batman decides to take matters into his own hands, forming a team to negotiate the need for regulations behind the back's of the other founders, who can only go unsighted for so long.


**Machinations of the Bat**

 **AN: Hi there, Hope you enjoy this Justice League story. By the way, I am looking for a Beta reader so if you're interested then private message me or something.**

 **Hopefully this will be the first in a series of stories I want to do on the Justice League, probably with a more Bat-Centric feel (it's how I got into DC and he's the character I know the most about).**

 **I am going to put in... not a warning as such but just a notice. While this will have a lot of the main characters from the Justice League in, this piece will also focus a lot on some of the less well known members.**

 **Disclaimer: I own none of the rights to these characters, that all lies with DC entertainment.**

 **Enjoy :)**

 **Chapter 1**

Bruce smiled grimly as he overlooked the scene below, the grey and black armour of the Batman not quite blending into the dim light of the Metropolis evening. Green Arrow was handing over the last of a gang of gunmen over to the police, who were looking at the Archer with reverence.

The two heroes had gotten the call that hostages had been taken in the lobby of Metropolis National Bank, and they had been on the ground less than three minutes later. This proved to be too slow, as the armed men had killed two hostages and a policeman by this point. However, the two heroes had quickly neutralised the threat upon their arrival.

They started the task at hand by infiltrating the bank through a window on the fifth floor. Bruce had placed a remote detonator on the lift shaft, before crawling through the ducts till he was located above the atrium, where the majority of the thugs were situated. Green Arrow, ever the jokester, had decided that this was too much effort and decided to make his grand entrance by strolling down the large, marble staircase at the back of room. The two men had planned the timing of their entrance perfectly. Bruce quietly unscrewed the grate covering his exit, until it was hanging beneath it from one screw, swinging slightly. This was the moment of maximum risk, he knew, as if one of the men looked up and saw the grate moving, their cover would be blown and bullets would rain upon him, and the confines of the shaft would leave him no room to dodge. The suit he was wearing could stop a bullet or two, and it had proved this on numerous occasions. However, it wasn't designed to stop a whole barrage of fire from automatic weapons, and he would be cut to ribbons if he was noticed. Now that one would be hard for Alfred to explain to the public. How Gotham's favoured son had ended up as mincemeat. He smiled humourlessly at his joke.

He hit a button on his belt and there was a rumble from the elevator shaft, before a crash as the doors were thrown open by the violent stopping force of the lift. Bruce had let out a sigh of relief he hadn't realised he'd been holding, and he threw himself out of the duct, extending his cape to full length, and he glid at pace towards the closest thug too him. As planned, all of the men's attention had turned to the lift, weapons focused on the doorway. As his feet crashed into the masked man, an arrow simultaneously embedded itself in the shoulder of the man closest to the group of twenty or so hostages by the counter, dropping him to the floor.

Bruce rose from the crouch he landed in, cape billowing out behind him imposingly. A glance at the man on the floor confirmed what he already knew. Out cold. The force of a 250-pound man decked out in body armour landing at that speed would do that to a man. By the time he looked back across the nearly empty atrium, the thugs were all starting to turn around. Bruce smirked. Too slow. He threw the first of the batarangs in his hand, it catching a thug on the hand, making him drop his weapon. He let out a shout of pain and looked at where Bruce had been, but the caped crusader was already on the move. He threw another one at a different gunman, this one striking the man square in the forehead, sending him tumbling to the ground. Bruce went to his belt, pulling out his grappling hook. He fired it into the wall, behind the next thug, who's worry turned into a big grin when he realised The Batman had missed. He brought his AK-47 round to bear and started firing. However, by the time the bullets got to their target, he was no longer there. Bruce had pressed the retract line on his grappling hook, and with one end stuck in the wall, the gun had pulled him across the room. It took him a second to cover the sixty odd meters between the two, and upon reaching the man he pressed the release button on the gun, and the line detached and Bruce's momentum came crashing to a stop. The thug swung a fist at him which Bruce easily ducked, and he saw one other thug, the closest to the downed lift, bring his weapon around to bear on the two fighting men. He took slightly longer than Bruce would have called normal, as he had to deal with a big bag full of money wrapped around his shoulder. He paused however, seeing that he couldn't get a shot away without hitting the other thug. Bruce used this opportunity to sink a sharp blow into the first man's kidneys, causing him to double over. He saw the look in the shooters eye turn from hesitation to an unapologetic glint. Bruce realised that the man was going to shoot, regardless of whether his friend was in the way or not. He threw a smoke pellet on the ground as the muzzle flashed, before he tackled the still hunched thug to the floor. a hail of bullets flew over their heads and he grabbed the thug's skull before slamming onto the floor, knocking him out. He stayed in that position, laying prone on top of the unconscious body as he waited for the tell-tale click of the empty chamber, praying that a stray bullet didn't hit him in his relatively unprotected thighs or ribs.

 _Click._

Bruce leapt into action. The smoke was just starting to clear as he fired his zip-line into the air, the pointed end embedding itself in the ceiling. He shot upwards out of the smoke, before spreading his wings towards the thug. The man's eyes widened as the terrifying gargoyle-like presence descending on him. He swung his weapon at Bruce in a panicked last attempt to take down the Dark Knight. However, he forgot about the bag of money swung over his shoulder. This extra weight provided him with more force than he'd anticipated and he found himself falling following Bruce's duck. As he was falling, Bruce's elbow connected with the back of his head in a skull jarring blow, knocking the man out.

Bruce turned, arms raised to a perfect height out in front of him, ready to strike or block if needed, and yet close enough to his belt for him to pull out a gadget if needed. As it turned out, it wasn't. He watched as Green Arrow hit the last standing man in the head with his bow, and the man went down like a pile of bricks.

"The Safe" Bruce growled across the room, his voice even deeper and hollower in the large room. Arrow nodded at him, vaulting over the bank countertop before dashing down the ramp behind it.

Bruce strode over to the hostages, untying the few who had been strapped into chairs. He marched them out of the building, where they quickly found policemen and medics to attend to them. Bruce's eyes crossed with the eyes of a policeman dressed in the outfit of a Captain. He seemed to be the senior officer at the bank, so he gave a succinct nod to the man, who raised his walkie-talkie up to his mouth and said something. Cops started to walk up the steps leading to the building, and the Captain himself was approaching him.

"All clear?" he said when he was within 5 yards.

Bruce just nodded.

"What did we have?"

"Group of ten thugs broke in with assault weapons. All have been dealt with."

"Ok. Thanks for your help. Captain Kyle Van Smeert, by the way. It's a pleasure to meet you." The man- Kyle- offered his hand to Bruce. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Green Arrow escorting the man from the safe out the building. He looked back at the Captain's outstretched hand, before reaching into his belt and firing his grappling gun at a nearby building.

* * *

Bruce watched from the rooftop as Green Arrow spoke to Captain Van Smeert on the floor. The policeman had gone very red at the Dark Knight's disappearance, which brought a smile to Bruce's face. The last thug had been handed over to the police by Green Arrow and was being escorted into a police car.

His attention was taken away from this exchange as a ray of red sunlight hit the skyscraper located next to the bank. He turned to look at the source, and almost gasped. Metropolis was lit up by one of the most beautiful sunsets Bruce had ever seen.

Contrary to popular belief, "The Batman" did have feelings and he stood for a few seconds, basking in the glory of the sunset. Moments of beauty like this were essential to be taken in, in his opinion. While the darkness of the Bat is what drove him, moments where he could be just Bruce had to be relished as they kept him in touch with his humanity. If anyone had seen him, he'd have claimed he thought he had seen a gunman on one of the buildings down the street.

He was woken from his reverie by the sounds of a scuffle down on the street. While in the process of pulling the last thug's mask off, the police had somehow managed to let him get free and he had grabbed a handgun from a policeman. Bruce dove off the roof with a reckless abandon, desperate to put his body between the gun and another human.

He was barely halfway there, however, by the time the situation was over. Green Arrow proved to the onlookers why he was the best archer in the world, as he pulled off an outrageous shot, the arrow going through the barely open legs of a policeman obstructing his view before embedding itself in the thug's knee. He gave out a scream of pain and dropped to the floor before being swamped by policemen. Green Arrow strode over to the man to inspect his handiwork, and Bruce touched down next to him.

"What, you thought I didn't have it?" Green Arrow said cockily to Bruce. "Did you see it though. That was one hell of a shot."

Bruce didn't answer, too busy staring at the tattoo of a demon's head that was on the man's neck, with a trail of smoke disappearing underneath the man's clothes. A mark he certainly recognized.

"Bats? Did you see it?"

Bruce rounded on Arrow.

"What was in that safe." He growled at the taken aback archer.

"Uhh- Uhh I don't know? Money?" Arrow stuttered.

"Is that all? Are you sure?"

"No?"

Bruce absorbed this information for a second. He turned and strode back over to Van Smeert.

"That man does not leave. You hear me?" Bruce ordered him, and the Captain gave him a terrified nod. "He's League business." With this, Bruce pushed past the man and into the bank, before making a beeline for the safe.

* * *

Bruce had been searching the Safe for ten minutes now. So far every object he'd looked at in the huge safe had been of the monetary kind. He was so absorbed with going through piles of cash, looking for anything out of the ordinary that he didn't notice Green Arrow enter the room.

"Batman, what exactly are you looking for?" he asked. Bruce forced himself not to jump at the sound. He'd never live it down if the league found out he'd been surprised by Oliver Stone.

"That man was a member of the League of Shadow's. They have no interest in money. At all. There must be something else here." Bruce responded like he knew the man had been there all along.

"And this League is bad news, I assume?"

"Worse than you could imagine?" Bruce said grimly as he flicked through another pile of bills, looking for anything that might be out of place. "Are you sure you got all of them?"

"No-one escaped during the time we've been here. Not through me, certainly. I wasn't watching your half. But before we got here, I don't know" Oliver said, getting a glare from Bruce. There was a slight pause. "So what exactly would this thing look like?"

"It wouldn't be money. It's wouldn't be the gold bars. It would be something old I imagine. It might not look valuable at all, but it would be something out of place."

"Like that?" Green Arrow said, pointing to an object on a shelf some twenty yards away. When Bruce looked at him enquiringly, he responded "Archer's eyes, remember?"

Bruce nodded before walking over to the object. It was half of a bigger whole, that was for sure. If it had been complete it would have been a little stone circle no bigger than his fist, with a dirty red jewel in the middle. However, it had been cleaved in half by a very sharp object and by the way the rock was eroded but the gemstone was not, it had clearly happened a long time ago. Bruce stared at the ruby. He could almost hear a foreign chanting in his brain. The whole object reeked of an ancient unfathomable power. He shook his head, and the chanting stopped. He looked grim. He did not like this at all. He wondered what it could do, that made it so valuable to the league.

"Yes. This would be it."

"What is it?" Green Arrow asked.

"I don't know" Bruce muttered quietly, lost in thoughts. It had some writing, Greek maybe, on the stone. He slid it into a compartment on his belt slowly.

"So, what now Bat's?" Arrow asked him, and for once Bruce didn't give him a glare at the nickname.

"Watchtower. We can use the interrogation rooms up there. It's quicker to get to than the Batcave. Diana might be aboard as well, and I need her to translate this writing."

Green Arrow nodded at him, and they both strode out of the safe and out of the bank. They walked over to the thug and they grabbed an arm each. Green Arrow brought his communicator up to his mouth.

"Transport for three to Watchtower, please." Whoever was in the monitor womb must have heard them, as their bodies disappeared in a flash, leaving Captain Kyle Van Smeert stunned.

* * *

Unbeknownst to the two heroes or any of the cops on the ground, a man in armour watched from the shadows as they disappeared. He smirked, although it was impossible to tell this as he wore a helmet that covered his whole face.

"Tell the Demon that contingency plan A is required." He spoke quietly, apparently to know one. There was a crackle over the intercom.

"It shall be done."

* * *

 **I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Please Review if you liked something, didn't like something, it's one of the main driving forces to keep me motivated, and feedback is always nice.**

 **I hope to have the next update done by next Friday although I do have a busy week, am moving back home for the summer and all.**

 **Once more if at of you are interested in Becoming a Beta reader then PM me.**

 **Till next time...**


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